Seven years after a sharp decrease in honeybee populations sparked
global concern about the fate of the essential pollinators, government
officials in the United States and European Union have come to differing
conclusions about what is causing "colony collapse disorder."
While European regulators have moved to temporarily ban a class of
pesticides called neonicotinoids that some scientists say is a principal
cause of the die-offs, officials in the US say the pesticides are just
one of many factors contributing to the declining bee numbers.

EU member states in March failed to agree to ban three widely used
pesticides linked to bee deaths. Thirteen EU governments were in favor
of the ban, nine voted against, and five others--including Britain and
Germany --abstained. Campaigners with the online advocacy group Avaaz,
which had collected 2.5 million signatures on a petition calling for a
neonicotinoid ban, accused European governments of ignoring public
opinion. "Germany and Britain have caved in to the industry
lobby," Avaaz campaigner lain Keith said. Pesticide makers Bayer
and Syngenta fought hard against the proposed ban. While few people deny
that neonicotinoids (or "neonics," as they are often referred
to) can be harmful to bees, biologists have mixed opinions about the
degree to which they are reducing bee populations. "Of course they
can kill bees; they are insecticides, but whether they actually do this,
or whether sub-lethal effects occur and damage the colonies on any
important scale, has not been proven," says Lin Field, head of
biological chemistry at Britain's Rothamsted Research center.

A recent study published in the journal Nature Communications
offers a counterargument. The study says neonics and another type of
pesticide, coumaphos, which is used to kill varroa mites, directly
impact bees' brain physiology. As many as one-third of bees exposed
to the pesticides failed to learn or performed poorly on memory tests.
"Disruption in this important function has profound implications
for honeybee colony survival, because bees that cannot learn will not be
able to find food," says Dr. Geraldine Wright, a study co-author.

European officials eventually decided that precaution is the best
course of action. In late April, the European Commission announced a
two-year moratorium on the use of neonics.

In the United States, meanwhile, environmentalists are also pushing
to get neonics off the market. But government officials here aren't
as sympathetic to a ban, saying that neonics are just one of several
threats to honeybees.

In May the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental
Protection Agency released a report that concluded a host of other
factors including the parasitic varroa mite, bacteria, poor nutrition,
and genetics were to blame for the rapid decline in honeybees. The
USDA-EPA report said more research was needed to determine the extent to
which neonics are responsible for bee deaths.

Environmentalists were unimpressed. "We've got so much
research on neonicotinoids now that all point to major impacts on
honeybees and other beneficial insects," says Scott Hoffman Black,
director of the Xerces Society, which works for the conservation of
invertebrates.

This spring, the National Resources Defense Council issued a
scathing report showing that the EPA has used a loophole to allow more
than 10,000 "untested or undertested" pesticides to be sold.
About 65 percent of the pesticides on the market only have a
"conditional registration." Neonicotinoids are among them.

The Center for Food Safety has filed a lawsuit in federal court to
try to force the EPA to ban or better regulate two neonicotinoids
implicated in bee deaths: clothianidin and thiamethoxam. But the EPA
appears in no hurry to address the chemicals' impact. When asked by
CBS News how long it will take to conduct a new review of neonics, an
agency spokesperson responded that it "should be completed in five
years."

Environmentalist argue that, in the meantime, US officials should
operate under the precautionary principle and keep neonics off the
market. "The bees are in a crisis situation and therefore so is
agriculture and so you take the action that can be taken now," says
Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist with NRDC. "If you already know
that neonics are part of the problem, then you need to get rid of
them."